Monday, March 12, 2007
Kurds prevent use of Assyrian language in business
(AINA) -- Kurdish authorities are preventing Assyrian businesses from using Assyrian names or putting up signs using the Assyrian language on the front of their stores, according to the Assyrian website assyrian4all.net. Kurdish authorities have informed businesses that they may use Kurdish or English only. An Assyrian businessman observed that this policy is no different from that under Saddam's regime, when Assyrians were forced to use Arabic instead of Assyrian names.
COMMENT: Assyrians are an ethnic group whose origins lie in what is today Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. Most Assyrians speak a modern form of Syriac, an Eastern Aramaic language whose dialects include Chaldean and Turoyo as well as Assyrian. All are classified as Neo-Aramaic languages and are written using Syriac script, a derivative of the ancient Aramaic script. Assyrians also may speak one or more languages of their country of residence.
As a result of persecution, mostly during the last century, there is now a significant Assyrian diaspora. Major events included the Islamic revolution in Iran, the Simele massacre, and the Assyrian genocide that occurred under Ottoman Turkish rule in the early 1900's. The latest event to hit the Assyrian community is the war in Iraq; of the one million or more Iraqis reported by the United Nations to have fled, forty percent are Assyrian, despite Assyrians comprising only three to five percent of the Iraqi population. Assyrians adhere to Christianity. Under MAPS on the left look at the Distribution of ethnic and religious groups to see Assyrian areas in Iraq.COMMENT ENDS.
As a result of persecution, mostly during the last century, there is now a significant Assyrian diaspora. Major events included the Islamic revolution in Iran, the Simele massacre, and the Assyrian genocide that occurred under Ottoman Turkish rule in the early 1900's. The latest event to hit the Assyrian community is the war in Iraq; of the one million or more Iraqis reported by the United Nations to have fled, forty percent are Assyrian, despite Assyrians comprising only three to five percent of the Iraqi population. Assyrians adhere to Christianity. Under MAPS on the left look at the Distribution of ethnic and religious groups to see Assyrian areas in Iraq.COMMENT ENDS.
